


What It Should Have Been

by BleedingInk



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Djinni & Genies, Gen, Wayward Daughters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-11
Updated: 2015-10-02
Packaged: 2018-04-20 05:57:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 14,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4776203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingInk/pseuds/BleedingInk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life with Jody Mills is maddeningly boring for Claire, but that's exactly what she needs to keep her mind distracted from everything she has gone through. Until some mysterious disappearences start ocurring in town, and Claire decides she nees to do something about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Life with Jody Mills was, in short terms, maddeningly boring.

It wasn’t that Claire didn’t appreciate Jody taking her in after her mother died, because she did. She needed a place to stay, no questions asked, and when she had showed up at Jody’s doorstep and her only excuse for being there had been “The Winchesters sent me”, the Sheriff had opened the door for her without a second hesitation.

“You can take the couch, sweetie,” Jody had told her, as she gathered up blankets and pillows for her. “I hope it’s not too hard for you.”

“It’s fine,” Claire had said. As far as places to crash went, Jody’s living room wasn’t the worse for sure. It had a red wallpaper and a vase with artificial flowers on a corner. It was more homely than Claire had expected from what she’d been told about Jody.

That was when she’d noticed the dark-haired girl standing in the stairs, staring at her with curiosity.

“This is Alexis,” Jody had introduced them. “Alexis, this is Claire. She’s going to stay with us for a while.”

“Hey,” Claire said.

“Hey,” Alexis replied in the same tone. “I’m just gonna go up and finish my homework.”

“She is not going to finish her homework,” Jody had muttered while Alexis disappeared.

That had been a bit of a harsh reminder. Claire had wished for a second that she could have her mother with her, and that she could be worried for something as mundane and stupid as Claire not finishing her homework.

“Oh, honey,” Jody had said, sitting by Claire’s side and holding her tight when she saw her tearing up a little. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. I promise.”

Claire didn’t know how much that promise was worth, but she appreciated Jody saying it anyway.

“So are we taking in strays now?” Alexis had asked the following morning, narrowing her eyes at Claire over the breakfast. Claire had decided she didn’t like her.

“It’s only until she gets back on her feet,” Jody had clarified.

“It’d be easier if I had any idea how to do that,” Claire had admitted.

“Well, take your time to think about it,” Jody had said. “You’ll figure something out.”

Claire had figured immediately the first thing she needed was a job. Having a roof over her head was nice and all, but she was not going to be a financial burden on Jody. She didn’t know what she would do once she had enough saved up, but one step at the time.

And so her boring routine had begun.

She got up early to work a double shift at the local coffee shop (Jody had put in a good word for her, telling the patrons she was her niece and convincing them to tip generously), she went back home, did her part of the chores (because of course she was not going to be left off the hook for that) and binge-watched TV until Jody arrived for dinner. Sometimes she had to get up in the middle of the night to bang on Alexis door and ask her to turn down her stupid music (the girl was absolutely nocturnal, for some reason, and her room always smelled like weed, no matter how many scented candles she lit up).

And then she went to sleep.

And did it all over again the next morning.

She didn’t care. Boring was exactly what she needed after all she’d gone through. Boring was numbness, it was comfort. Boring meant she was not thinking about cradling her mother’s broken and still barely warmth body in her arms. Boring meant she wasn’t tormented by nightmares of what Salinger had tried to do to her. Boring meant she got to sit in silence and answer with a monotonous “Fine” whenever Jody asked how her day had gone. (Alexis didn’t even register her, which was also fine for Claire.)

It went on for a couple of weeks.

Then the disappearances started happening.

She read it on a patron’s newspaper while she refilled his coffee. The entire front page was occupied by a brunette girl smiling at the camera, with big letters next to her face that read: “HAVE YOU SEEN ME?”

“Excuse me,” she told the patron. “Can I borrow this?”

“Sure, honey.” The guy shrugged as he handed it to her. “I was already finished.”

Claire brought it to the back room and read the entire article with avid eyes: Eloise Parker. 22. Last seen leaving Summerfield College’s campus four days before. She’d never made it home. Her car had been found on the college’s parking lot. Her belongings were all still there; suggesting she might have been taken away against her will. Both her parents and her boyfriend were desperate to find out what had become of her and asked for the community to contact them or the police with any information they might have.

“Hey, Novak, snap out of it!” her boss called. “Table number 5!”

“Sorry,” Claire muttered.

She continued to tend tables for the rest of the day, but Eloise’s smile haunted her. From what she could gather from the article, there was no reason for her to have run away, so she must have been snatched. Four days had gone without a ransom call, so clearly the kidnapper wasn’t interested in money. Also, aside from the almost perfect vanishing act (no surveillance cameras, no witnesses) there was absolutely no reason to suspect anything supernatural was involved. It could have been just a run of the mill serial killer.

But Claire’s senses were tingling.

“So how was your day, honey?” Jody asked that night, as usual.

“Fine,” Claire answered, looking down at her plate of spaghetti. Then, she took a deep breath: “Hey, have you heard about this Eloise Parker girl? She totally vanished in thin air not a week ago. Spooky.”

That had not been as subtle as she was hoping. Both Jody and Alexis stared at her, slightly stunned. It only occurred to Claire later that that had been the longest sentence she had pronounced since she arrived at the house.

“Yeah, I’ve read about it,” Jody said, quickly recovering from her shock. “We’ve all been alerted in case we see her.”

They kept eating in silence for a while. Claire was gathering her ideas on how to bring up the next topic, but thanks to Alexis, she didn’t have to.

“So do you think, like, there was something involved?” she asked. “Like… some _thing_?”

Claire raised an eyebrow at her. She knew Jody knew, of course, but she had no idea what was Alexis’ relationship with the supernatural. Honestly, she didn’t think Alexis cared about anything besides her stupid rock pop music and her weed.

Jody was clearly not happy that the two of them were talking about this issue.

“There’s no evidence of that,” she said. “I’ve checked for everything. There’s no EMF, so it’s not ghosts, there’s no sulfur, so it’s not demons…”

“It could be vampires,” Alexis suggested.

“Eloise’s body hasn’t showed up completely drained from blood, so it’s not vampires,” Jody said, firmly. “Nothing suggests a monster took her.”

“But you’re not convinced,” said Claire, narrowing her eyes at the Sheriff.

Jody slammed her glass of water down on the table with a little more strength that it was necessary.

“What I think doesn’t matter,” she concluded. “What matters is that you girls have to keep your noses clean and out of this mess, am I making myself clear?”

“Yes, ma’am, crystal clear,” Alexis said, in a display of obedience that was so out of character it fooled exactly no one.

“I mean it, Alexis,” Jody insisted. “I don’t want you sniffing on this. Remember what you told me about wanting to be normal? Normal people don’t go around picking fights with monsters.”

“Then none of us is exactly normal, right?” Claire intervened.

Jody’s glare was so intense that she decided the best course of action was to quietly eat the rest of her dinner. The Sheriff kept berating them for five straight minutes about how they needed to live their own lives, to not get fixated on those things, and surely, Eloise would turn up sooner or later, and everything would be resolved. Then she practically forced them to promise that they would forget about it and let the police handle it. With ordinary, police work. Both the girls gave her word.

Claire still cut the article about the disappearance and kept it between the pages of the book Dean had given her.

The two following days was business as usual. And then, on Monday, a second person went missing.

Claire saw it on the newsstand on her way to work and used her hard-earned tip money to buy a paper. Trey Teeter, who besides having the douchiest name in the history of the world, was a twenty three year old student and the quarterback on Summerfield’s team. The same school Eloise Parker went to. There were other coincidences beside that: Trey had disappeared in the evening when he was going home, which supported Alexis’ theory that there were vampires involved, and his belonging had been found scattered around on the side of a road.

Claire also cut that article and, instead of vacuuming the carpet, she spent a good chunk of the afternoon reading both articles back and forward, like playing a game of spot the difference. And suddenly it hit her: Eloise’s car had been found on the parking lot, but how about Trey’s? Obviously, someone as douchey as he sounded probably had a very expensive car, probably an SUV or a Ferrari, or something that would call the attention of the police if it disappeared.

So where was Trey’s car?

“I’m just saying, it looks like the logical thing to do is look for it,” she argued that night during dinner. “If whoever took Trey didn’t also take his car, maybe they dumped it somewhere. It could be a clue that pointed where he was taken.”

The look on Jody’s face indicated Claire that she was pushing her luck, so she shut her mouth.

“Do you really think that a bunch of trained police officers didn’t think of that first?” she asked. “We’ve spent the better part of the day trying to locate Trey’s pickup truck, and we’ll probably be doing that again tomorrow.”

“It could be too late by tomorrow,” Alexis said in a very low voice. Jody’s exasperation reached critical levels.

“You’re dropping this issue right now, you hear me?” she told them, with a look so severe it scorched a little. “If there is a monster involved – which we don’t know – I will take care of it. If there isn’t, then the last thing the police needs right now is a couple of teenage girls meddling into this case.”

“Okay, fine, got it,” Claire said, raising her hands in defeat. “No meddling.”

Jody turned her glare to Alexis, who promised the same thing.

“Right,” Jody groaned, obviously not believing them at all. “Thomas is going to pick me up in for our night shift. You two are going to stay here, safe. You are going to finish your Literature essay,” she said, pointing a finger at Alexis. “And you,” she added, pointing at Claire, “still have laundry to do. And I expect it to be done by the morning.”

Claire nodded obediently and Alexis got up to go to her room. Jody still lingered around for fifteen minutes after Thomas parked in front of the house, like her glaring at Claire a little more would absolutely convince her to forget about the case, and then she left.

She hadn’t even finished closing the door behind her when Alexis came running down the stairs.

“Alright,” she told Claire. “What’s the plan?”

“The plan for what?” Claire asked, pretending she was very busy throwing the clothes in the washing machine.

“You know, the plan to find out what ugly thing is snatching people around here,” Alexis specified. “You have a plan, don’t you?”

Claire shut the washing machine and started the cycle without even looking at Alexis.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Right, of course you don’t,” Alexis said, her tone filled to the brim with sarcasm. “Look, I’m not going to tell on you, okay? But if you’re going to do something, I want in too.”

“I’m not going to do anything,” Claire said, putting on her best poker face. “You heard Jody, she doesn’t want us meddling.”

“Like that’s going to stop you,” Alexis scoffed.

“In case you haven’t noticed, I am living here rent free,” Claire pointed out. “That’s a pretty sweet deal. I am not going to screw it up by breaking the house owner's rules.”

Alexis stared at her some more, like that was going to get Claire to cave in and confess. But since Claire had been through more interviews with social workers that she cared to count, it was useless. In the end, Alexis threw her hands in the air, mumbled “Suit yourself” and disappeared upstairs.

Claire sat down on her couch to watch TV, making sure to turn the volume way up. At the same time, Alexis turned her horrid music upstairs. Claire waited for five entire minutes, before picking up her sword, her cellphone, the map area she had been studying earlier and sneaked out of the house.

Jody’s truck was still parked in the garage and unlocked. Claire jumped in, leaned beneath the wheel and started manipulating the cables, trying to remember the steps Dustin had taught her.

The door from the passenger door opened and Claire jolted so suddenly she hit her head on the wheel.

“I knew it!” Alexis exclaimed, looking at her with a smile from outside the car.

“What, this?” Claire said, with the blood fleeing from her face. She had to come up with a lie fast and not think about the consequences of Alexis telling Jody what she had caught Claire doing. She would be kicked out of the house, she would be on her own on the street again, and then… “No, I was just...”

Alexis got in and dangled the keychain in front of Claire’s face.

“Don’t you think it’ll be easier if you just use these?”

Claire narrowed her eyes at her. She was not sure what Alexis was trying to accomplish there, but she didn’t she would like the answer if she asked.

“Look, I want to find out what’s going on here as much as you do,” Alexis explained without Claire having to ask. “If it’s vampires or another thing, I want to know.”

“Why the obsession with vampires?” Claire asked.

“Who says I’m obsessed with vampires?” Alexis said, avoiding her gaze.

“That was the first thing that came to your mind when you found out people had been disappearing,” Claire pointed out. “So why vampires, specifically?”

Alexis didn’t say a word and Claire decided not to push the issue.

“Alright, fine,” she resigned herself in the end. “Get in.”

The smug smile on Alexis face was enough to make her think she was making a terrible mistake, but then she handed her the keys.

“How do we do this?” she asked, as Claire turned the engine on.

“First we investigate the scene of the crimes,” Claire said. “Then we see if we find a lead that will lead us somewhere.”

“You know, for a plan, that’s pretty feeble.”

“You got anything better?” Claire groaned.

Alexis made a face, but looked away and didn’t answer. It was going to be a very long night.


	2. Chapter 2

The campus was empty at that hour of the night, except for some bored campus security guys that had been almost boringly easy to slip past by. Still Krissy kept looking over her shoulder anyway while Josephine leaned next to the place where Trey’s car had been parked, EMF meter in hand. They already knew it wasn’t a ghost (a ghost didn’t kidnap people and dragged them miles away), but they had to rule out all possibilities.

“Well, just as we expected,” Josephine said, standing up. “Whole lot of nada.”

“You still think we’re after a nest?” Krissy asked.

“Nah,” her partner shook her head. “A nest couldn’t move this fast. Whatever it is, it’s acting alone.”

Krissy sighed. Of course it wasn’t going to be that easy.

“I guess that means we’re on searching duty,” she said, taking her cellphone out and starting to type.

“Oh, joy,” Josephine complained. “Because that’s exactly what I needed after a long day of driving: an entire night of breaking into abandoned buildings in an unknown town.”

Krissy glared at her. “Aiden could be in mortal danger right now,” she reminded her.

“Yeah, well, and whose fault is that?”

“His for not telling us what he was up to,” Krissy agreed. “But still doesn’t mean we should leave him for dead.”

She took a knife from her pocket and put it in Josephine’s hand. The older girl sighed deeply.

“I hate it when you’re right,” she commented.

“Let’s split to cover more ground,” Krissy instructed, passing her cellphone to Josephine so she could check the map she had out. “Remember, if you see anything, don’t charge in there alone…”

“Yes, yes, I call for you and wait until you come and help me,” Josephine huffed. “Which is what Aiden should have done, so we wouldn’t be in this mess.”

“You can lecture him all you want,” Krissy promised her. She knew her friend was being so obnoxious about the issue because she was actually really worried and deflecting. “After we find him.”

Josephine opened her mouth to reply something else when they heard a noise. Both girls froze, and immediately reached for their weapons.

“The guard?” Josephine mouthed, as they crouched behind their own car.

Krissy shook her head. They had already made their rounds on this part of the campus, it was too soon for them to be coming back. She made some gestures to Josephine: she was going to pop her head over the car and check what was going on. Josephine nodded and raised her gun, to signify she had Krissy’s back.

The steps were coming closer now, and whoever it was, they were making no effort to keep their presence hidden.

“Don’t go so fast!” said the first voice.

“Don’t walk so slow,” the other replied.

They were two girls, and when Krissy tried to take a look at them, she confirmed they were young enough to be in campus. Or at least they looked like it. But the university had implemented a curfew after the disappearances, so it was really strange that two students would be in the parking lot of the campus that late at night. Unless they were the thing Krissy and Josephine were looking for, and they had gone there to snatch their next victim.

Josephine appeared to be thinking the same, because she made a gesture with her gun (“Should we get them?”), but Krissy shook her head. She wanted to hear more of their conversation before doing anything rushed.

“So what are we looking for, exactly?” the first girl, the slow walker, asked.

“Anything that could point to where they went,” said the second one. “A scratch on the floor, a thrown away wrapper…”

“So you have no idea what we’re looking for,” growled the first girl. “Great.”

“Hey, I never said I was good at this,” the second girl replied. “And you were the one who insisted on coming, so shut up and help.”

Well, that was confusing. Josephine repeated her gesture with the gun (“I still think we should shoot them”), but Krissy shook her head again and made a gesture with her hand (“Follow my lead”).

“Oh, my God, Jo, I can’t believe you’re so reckless!” she shouted, standing up. The other two girls startled when they say her and took a step backwards. Krissy looked at them and showed them her most innocent, biggest smile. “Hi! You didn’t happen to see an earring around here? My friend lost one of hers.”

“It was a gift from my grandmother,” Josephine explained, also standing up. “It was actually really ugly, but, you know… sentimental value.”

The other two girls exchanged looks. One of them had long blonde hair she had braided to keep out of her way. The other had straight black hair, and looked utterly annoyed.

“No, sorry, no earrings,” said the blonde.

“But we’ll keep an eye out,” the other girl promised.

“Thank you,” Krissy sighed. “Oh, gosh, look how late it is! We should return to our dorms before the curfew.”

“Yeah, you should do the same thing,” Josephine added. “You’ve heard all this thing about the disappearance?”

“We’ve heard,” said the blonde. “It’s crazy, huh?”

“Yeah, so creepy,” her friend confirmed. She sounded so forced Krissy could have told a mile away that she was just humoring the other, who proceeded to subtly punch her on the shoulder.

“Okay,” Krissy said, with a slight nod on Josephine’s direction. “We’re going now.”

“Us too,” the blonde replied, with a rigid smile.

Krissy went around the car, as the blonde girl grabbed her friend’s arm (“Hey, hey, what are you doing?”) and started pulling her away. Krissy counted until three.

Like it had been choreographed, Blondie turned around as she drew a sword (of all things) from her coat, but it didn’t matter, because both Krissy and Josephine were already pointing at her with her guns. The dark-haired girl looked at the three, and then sighed in frustration.

“I knew I should have taken one of Jodie’s shotguns,” she complained.

Nobody paid attention to her.

“Who are you?” Blondie demanded to know.

“Who are _you_?” Krissy replied. “And why are you precisely here this late?”

“I asked first,” Blondie said, brandishing the sword.

Krissy was not at all that impressed by it. It was either too heavy for Blondie or she hadn’t learned how to properly wield it yet. And in any case, Krissy could shoot her faster than Blondie could come close enough to stab her with it.

However, Josephine lowered her gun.

“Are those Enochian runes?” she asked, with that high pitch voice she used when she found something interesting in her research. “Is that an angel blade? I’ve never seen one.”

“It’s technically an angel sword,” Blondie explained, a little taken aback. “Seraphs use blades; these are wielded by another type of angels called Grigori.”

And Krissy just knew by the glimmer in Josephine’s eyes that Blondie had won her over.

“Krissy, they’re hunters,” she said. “Like us.”

“Alright,” Krissy said, because there really wasn’t any point in arguing when Josephine nerded out. She put her gun away, although she made sure she could reach for it easily should it come to it. “Still want to know why you’re here exactly.”

“Doing the same you’re doing, I assume,” Blondie replied. “Looking for clues.”

She was really good at faking confidence, but Krissy could tell she was faking and it was almost painful. If she was a hunter, she was a very inexperienced one, no matter how big and how weird was the sword she had.

“Okay, why don’t we go back to our car and exchange impressions?” Josephine proposed. She was way too enthusiastic about this, and she must have known Krissy was about to protest, because she added off-handedly: “Four heads are better than two, right?”

“Right,” Krissy said.

“Okay,” said the brunette girl. “Yeah, that sounds cool.”

No amount of glaring from her friend was enough to erase that moment. Krissy was completely convinced by now that Claire and Alexis (as it turned out to be their names) were going to be more of a hindrance than a help in that entire business.

Still Josephine insisted on catching them up.

“We have our base on Conway Springs, Kansas,” she explained, as she extended a map over their car’s booth. “A few weeks ago, we learned about a couple of mysterious deaths in our town.”

“Vics turned up completely emptied of blood,” Krissy said, placing some pictures over the map. “They had burned marks on their wrists, like they’ve been hanged by them. They had also been starved before dying.”

“How did you find out all this?” Claire asked. She sounded impressed, like she hadn’t even thought to investigate something like that.

“We are pals with the local police,” Krissy replied and left it there. She didn’t want to admit they had broken into the coroner’s office and snatched them. She wasn’t ready to share that part of their operations with these two strangers.

“So we decided to check it out, because we don’t like things that go bump in the night stumbling into our town,” Josephine continued. “But our friend Aiden decided to go solo to… I don’t know, prove himself of something ‘cause that’s the kind of stupid thing he does…”

“He got abducted,” Krissy summarized. “So we tracked down his phone, which he somehow managed to keep on himself, and the trail led us here.”

“Whoever or whatever took him must have destroyed it, because we lost him,” Josephine explained. “But it doesn’t matter, because we arrived just in time to catch whiff of a couple of brand new disappearances, which is what you were investigating, I assume.”

“Yes,” Claire nodded. Alexis, in the meantime, had been analyzing the pictures without showing signs of disgust or repulsion, and comparing dates of disappearance and dates when the corpses turned up. “Still think they’re vampires?”

“No, if vampires took someone to feed off them, they wouldn’t have starved them,” she said. “It just doesn’t taste the same when the victim is low on blood sugar,” she added, and when she realized everyone was staring at her, she cleared her throat: “I’ve heard. And they probably wouldn’t have kept them this long anyway.”

“That’s what we figured,” Josephine agreed, and moved the pictures to show the map again. “These are the locations where the victims in Conway Springs turned up,” she explained, pointing at the exes she had drawn over them. “I triangulated and realized the thing must have been taken them here,” she said, pointing at a location in the map. She looked at Claire and Alexis like that was supposed to mean something, the she remembered they were in Sioux Falls: “That’s mostly just abandoned warehouses.”

“Oh, like the ones there are around the abandoned fabric,” Alexis said. Again, everybody stared at her, and again she cleared her throat awkwardly. “I was on a rave there once.”

Claire was still looking at the pictures. Krissy had no idea what was going through her head, but she noticed she was holding onto the grip of her sword with a little more force than it was necessary. They better finished this quickly.

“That’s our best lead,” she said. “Let’s move.”

She moved to open the passenger seat before noticing Claire and Alexis weren’t moving.

“That means you too.”

“Really?” Alexis asked.

“It’s your town, your hunt,” Josephine replied. “Besides, the more we are, the better chance we have at jumping this nasty S.O.B.”

Claire snapped out of whatever she was thinking and nodded.

“Let’s go, then.”

 

* * *

 

The trip to the warehouse row was silent. Claire leaned her head against the window, trying to get her thoughts in order. Disappearing victims, something that fed on their blood, the monster taking them to isolated places… it was all too familiar, and at the same time, it wasn’t. It couldn’t be another Grigori, she told herself. Tamiel had kept his victims alive for years, while this thing got rid of them in just a couple of weeks. Hell, it could even be the case that he was the only angel psychotic enough to do that and that she would never meet another like him while she lived.

But still…

“So how long have you guys been doing this?” Alexis asked. Claire shot her a glare to shut her up, but to no avail. “I mean, ‘cause you seem to have this thing down to an art, but you’re still about our age, right? So I figure…”

“A crazy guy killed our families and convinced us to become hunters to avenge them,” Krissy cut her off. “He taught us a couple of things before blowing his own brains out.”

Claire was pretty sure Krissy was trying to kill the conversation with that. It worked for about five minutes.

“I was raised by vampires,” Alexis stated, matter-of-factly.

Claire saw Josephine’s confused grimace in the rearview and suffocated a chortle.

“Okay, that’s a new one,” Krissy admitted. “What about you, Blondie? What’s your sob story?”

“Not in the mood to share,” Claire said.

“Fair enough.”

And to Claire’s relief, they dropped the issue.

“Turn left,” Alexis indicated. They ran for a few meters over a completely empty street, and then Josephine stopped the car and let the engine die.

“We don’t want it to hear us coming,” she said.

They all got out of the car, and Krissy handed a gun to Alexis.

“Oh,” she said, holding it with insecure hands. “Okay.”

“I don’t need one,” Claire said when Krissy offered her one too. “Angel sword beats pretty much everything.”

“Have you have time to put that theory to test?” Josephine asked.

Claire didn’t bother to answer, but Krissy put the gun in her hand anyway along with a flashlight.

“We’re only just going to take a look,” she said. “If we see something, we call for the others. We don’t go in alone. One shot if you see the victims, two if you see the abductor.”

“Three if you have an opening,” Josephine added. Alexis raised her hand.

“I don’t really have good aiming…”

“Doesn’t matter, it probably won’t kill it,” Krissy replied. “But it will distract it or slow it down, so you have a chance to escape.”

She sounded so confident, it was hard not to believe her.

“We go in pairs,” she added. “Jo, you go with Alexis. Blondie, you come with me. We look from right to left, you guys look from left to right.”

“Good luck,” Josephine said, before striding towards the furthest warehouse. Alexis had to run to catch up with her. Krissy lifted her weapon, and went straight for the nearest one.

“It really seems like you’ve been doing this for a while,” Claire commented as she followed her.

“It really seems like it’s the first time you do this at all,” Krissy replied. Claire bit her lips and looked away. “Listen, it’s okay. I don’t care. As long as you don’t get in my way, we should be fine.”

“You try to not get in my way,” Claire replied.

Krissy would have felt bad for that awful comeback if she hadn’t been so concentrated on getting everything done. She busted the lock, and made a gesture to Claire: “Ready?”

Claire nodded, so Krissy lifted the door and pointed inside with her gun and her flashlight to discover… nothing. They got inside, but it was clear the warehouse was exactly what it appeared to be: a completely empty space. Some dust. A rat that ran away scared when they pointed at it with the light. Krissy sighed and pulled the door back down.

“Looks like we’re in for some chasing our tails,” she commented, looking at the row of warehouses they still had to check.


	3. Chapter 3

“So, Krissy, huh?” Alexis commented when she finally caught up with Josephine. “She’s kind of… intense, bossing everyone around and that.”

“She gets to be the boss ‘cause she’s the best one at it,” Josephine shrugged. “I just like mysteries and learning about stuff, I don’t have her kind of strategic thinking. And by the fact we’re looking for him right now, you can deduce Aiden isn’t exactly the sharpest tool of the shed.”

Alexis had to recognize that was some solid reasoning.

“So what was your deal with the vampires?” Josephine asked.

“Oh, yeah,” Alexis said, rolling her eyes to maintain her distant and aloof aura. “It was a bummer. I was with them until Jody rescued me last year. She’s sort of like my mom now.”

“Must be a tough lady.”

“Yeah, she’s pretty cool,” Alexis admitted. Then, upon reflecting about it: “Don’t tell her I said that.”

Josephine made a gesture of closing a zipper over her lips. And with that, the conversation died out, because they had reached their end of the row. Alexis was about to ask what happened then when Josephine raised an arm to stop her and pointed at the warehouse with her gun: the door was open, and there was some movement inside.

“Got your weapon?” Josephine asked in a whisper.

“Yes,” Alexis said, raising it. It was heavy, and it almost slipped from her fingers, but she managed to grip tighter. She had never fired one of those, and honestly, she would probably feel more confident if she had a machete or a sword like Claire. But it’d have to do. She followed Josephine, who was leaning against the wall next to the open warehouse now.

“We just take a quick look,” she instructed Alexis, in the same low tone as before. “Ready?”

“Yes,” Alexis said. “Wait!” she begged a second later, so Josephine turned to her. “What if it’s the thing?”

“Then we warn the others like Krissy said, remember?” Josephine replied. “Let’s go.”

She moved before Alexis had time to regret it one more time. They crossed the door with their flashlights pointing down. It was dark and the air was stale and dusty. Josephine had to hold her breath to avoid sneezing as they moved through the shelves, screening everything for something that looked out of the ordinary: a bloodstain, a discarded cellphone, something that indicated that whoever took those people was there…

A round, cold thing leaned against the back of her head.

“Don’t make a move,” a soft voice warned her.

Many things happened at the same time: somewhere at her left, Alexis whimpered in surprise. Then something heavy hit the floor, a shot echoed around the warehouse’s concrete walls, and whoever was behind took a step backwards in surprise… just far enough that Josephine could grab the rifle and send a blind punch directly to the face of her attacker, who staggered backwards but still recover its balance and raised a fist.

“Stop!” Alexis shouted, pointing her flashlight at them. “Both of you, stop right now!”

Now Josephine could see who it was: a lady with short, black hair, dressed in a Sheriff uniform. Her nose was bleeding from the hit she'd received, but she wasn’t looking at Josephine but at the other girl.

“Alexis, what the hell are you doing here?!” she demanded to know.

 

* * *

 

At the other side of the row, Krissy and Claire stopped just short of opening another warehouse and raised their heads in the air.

“Did that sound like a shot to you?” Claire asked.

Krissy nodded, and they waited. The second shot never came. The others had found the victims.

“Let’s go see,” she said.

“Wait, if they found the vics, that means they’re not in danger,” Claire argued. “We still don’t know what took them or why. We should keep looking for it.”

“Well, if it let its victims unattended, then it’s probably not here anyway,” Krissy reasoned. “We should help them, and then come back to prepare a trap for it.”

“In the meantime, it comes back first, discovers we took its snacks, and gets the hell out of dodge before we can finish it off,” Claire said. “Would you rather lose it forever so it can keep killing people?”

Krissy stopped and looked up at the sky, like she was begging for patience.

“Yeah,” she concluded in the end. “There are other hunters in the world that can take care of it.”

Claire stared at her in utter disbelief.

“You might be able to live with that, but I don’t,” she concluded. “I’m going to keep looking for it.”

She turned her back on Krissy, but the other girl wasn’t finished:

“Do you need me to explain to you that attitude is going to get you killed before you turn twenty-five?” she shouted at her. “You can’t save everybody!”

“Better give it a try than hiding away somewhere and hope that someone else will take care of it,” Claire replied, bitterly.

“You think I don’t see it?” Krissy asked, angrily. “Every day, when I read the news, you think I don’t see thousands of potential cases? But I don’t go running after them, because I don’t have a deathwish.”

Claire clenched her jaw. What Krissy was saying actually echoed Dean’s goodbye warning: “You go down this path, our path… is not a long life.”

But so what? What had Claire left? Both her parents were dead. So what if she died? Who would weep for her? She was nothing but a stupid little girl that had trusted the wrong people far more times than she cared to count. At least if she did that… if she hunted the things that went bump in the night… perhaps then she could save a life or two. Perhaps that way it could have some meaning.

She didn’t know. All she knew was that an empty street when there was still something on the loose eating people was not the right moment to have an epiphany about her life. And she was certainly not going to explain what was going through her mind to a stranger like Krissy.

“Listen, you go to the girls,” she said. “I’ll keep looking.”

“Fine,” Krissy said, with a scoff.

“Fine!” Claire replied, just because she wanted to have the last word.

Krissy had already spun on her heels and was walking away. Claire huffed to herself and used the pommel of her sword to bust the padlock of the warehouse.

“Stupid little… dead before twenty-five, what does she know?” Claire muttered to herself, pointing her flashlight towards the darkness. “I bet she doesn’t even…”

Her curses died away in her lips.

The light on her flashlight had just illuminated a figure. At first she wasn’t sure if the shadows were playing a trick on her, but as she approached it, she realized it was really a person, hanging with their wrists tied above their head. And there were two, just like the first, right at their side. Someone had put a dark hood over their heads, which were hanging languidly over their chests. For one terrifying moment, Claire thought she was too late.

She put the sword down and approached the first person (Eloise, she thought, the only girl that had disappeared). Her skin was still warm to the touch and it took Claire several desperate seconds to find her pulse, but there it was: slow and heavy, like her heart hesitated every time before pounding.

“Okay,” Claire muttered, she didn’t know if for herself or if to the girl in front of her. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

She went to pick up her sword…

… a strong hand covered her mouth and her nose and lifted her up in the air.

Claire’s mind went into panic mode immediately: she struggled and tried to kill her captor uselessly for a couple of minutes as he (it) dragged her away. She tried to pick up her gun, but her arms felt heavy, so heavy. Her fingers barely graze the grip before she lost control over them. She suddenly felt dizzy, and it was hard to think… to remember… she just wanted to sleep, she just wanted to…

There was a “clank” over her head and then darkness swallowed her up.

 

* * *

 

“What the hell are you doing here, Alexis?!”

Alexis took a step backwards, her eyes wide open in horror.

“Nothing,” she said. “Actually, I’m not here at all. I’m in my room. Doing my homework.”

That blatant and stupid lie was obviously not going to work, so Jody crossed her arms over her chest and glared at Alexis until the girl looked down in shame.

“And who is she?” Jody added, pointing at Josephine. “Why are you here? Is there another rave going to happen in these warehouses that I don’t know about?”

“Well, what are you doing here?” Alexis finally recovered her value. “Weren’t you on patrol? Why aren’t you… patrolling?”

“I ask the questions here, young lady!”

“Hey!” Krissy said, running inside the warehouse where they were all standing around talking. “What happened? Did you find them?”

“Nope,” Josephine sighed. “Rookie here dropped her gun.”

“Rookie?!” Jody shouted, outrage.

“And who’s that lady?”

“I think it’s her mom…”

“The vampire?”

“No, not the… not the vampire,” Alexis stammered. She was still trying to come up with a credible lie, but as Jody stared her down, she realized she was about to be interrogated with all the force of the law of Sioux Falls.

Well, what the hell. She was not going to see the light of day until she turned twenty one anyway.

“… so Krissy and Josephine are here looking for their friend,” Alexis finished explaining once they were all out of the warehouse. “And what about you? You said you weren’t hunting this thing!”

“I lied,” Jody admitted flatly. “I knew you would want to get involved and put yourself in danger, so I lied. It’s something that parents get to do, but children don’t. Life’s unfair that way. You don’t get to go hunting _on a school night_ without telling me about it, you got that?”

Alexis had nothing to reply to that, so she didn’t.

“Where’s Blondie?” Josephine asked.

“What?!” Jody shouted again. “Claire’s here too?”

In any other occasion, Alexis would have told her to keep it down, but not this time: she was suddenly struck by a sudden panic.

“Well, where is she?” she repeated. “Why isn’t she with you?”

“It’s okay, I let her keep investigating because the thing isn’t here because if you found the victims…” Krissy started, but she went quiet as the meaning of her words started to dawn on her. “Oh, shit.”

“You let her go at it alone?!” Jody shouted. “Are you insane? Anyone who’s talked to that girl for more than two minutes can tell she’s suicidal!”

“Well, we thought it was gone…” Krissy said.

“Jody, we have to find her,” Alexis said. “Please. She didn’t want to come, but I convinced her. This is my fault.”

Jody bit her lips, obviously thinking about telling the girls to go home and let her handle it, but clearly knowing they weren’t going to. In the end, she turned around and walked towards where her car was parked, beckoning the girls to follow her.

“I’ve been doing some digging,” Jody explained, as she opened the trunk and started pulling several knives. Just… common kitchen knives, except they were all silver. She passed them around the girls. “I called some other sheriffs and… contacts of mine. This thing has been leaving a trail across several states. The bodies found are consistent with the work of a Djinn.”

“Of course. How come I didn’t see it? They’re also known as genies,” Josephine started explaining when Alexis frowned, confused. “They feed on human blood and can poison you with their touch. It renders you in an unconscious state where you hallucinate about the thing you desire the most. That’s where the misconception that they grant wishes comes from.”

“Huh,” Krissy muttered. “ _Aladdin_ doesn’t seem so cute all of the sudden.”

“And they can be killed by silver knives soaked in lamb blood,” Jody added, taking out a jar full of a thick, red liquid.

“Where did you get lamb blood?” Alexis asked.

“Not the time,” Jody said as she opened the jars for the girls to stick their knives in. “You’re going to be _so_ grounded tomorrow, by the way,” she said when it was Alexis’ turn. The girl stared down at her shoes in shame. “Okay, I checked the first one here on the left…”

“And we checked the four coming from the right,” Krissy said. “Claire has to be inside one of those four.”

“Perhaps we should split…” Josephine started before Jody shut her up with only one glare.

“You stay behind me,” Jody said, pulling her own blood soaked knife from the inside of her jacket. “And if you see something that shouldn’t be there, stab it with everything you’ve got. Don’t let it touch you and scream for help. You think you can do that?”

Krissy and Josephine exchanged very confused looks, but Alexis was actually relieved someone was for once giving instructions she would be able to follow. Now that Jody had taken charge of the situation, all she had left to do was hope that Claire was okay.


	4. Chapter 4

Claire sat up on the bed with a gasp. The monster had attacked her, it was dragging her away, it…

She was somewhere with a window, the morning light coming in despite the purple curtains covering it. The other victims were nowhere to be found. Also, her sword was missing and upon feeling her clothes, she realized her gun (Krissy’s gun) was gone too. In fact, her clothes were gone. She was wearing some sort of oversized shirt and pajama shorts.

“What the hell…?” she muttered as she looked around.

She was in a room. Not a hospital room or a room in Jody’s house. Although judging by the shitty posters of those shitty boy bands on the wall, it was definitely the room of some teenager with poor musical taste. Claire rolled over and jumped out of the bed, still looking everywhere in case something unexpected jumped at her. There was a desk with books, a laptop and a lamp. She grabbed the lamp. It wouldn’t be of much use for a weapon, but she could definitely throw it at someone if they came at her. Using her free hand, she drew the curtains opened. She was on a second floor and…

There was a tree.

That was what made her stop in her tracks. Because she recognized the tree.

Back at home… her real home, not her Grammy’s place, not the room Salinger had let her stay in when she escaped her foster families. No, her home at the small town of Pontiac, Illinois, the place where she grew, the place where she and her family lived, she had her room on the second floor. And they had a tree on the backyard, a willow oak that according to her parents had been there when they’d bought the house. It had a tier hanging from one of the branches, and Claire couldn’t count how many afternoons she had spent swinging in it. Sometimes, if he wasn’t too busy, her dad would push her so high she’d get scared…

She shook her head. It couldn’t be the same tree.

But the tire was there, hanging from the exact same branch she remembered.

Something really fishy was going on there, and she needed to find out what _quick_.

She opened the closet, still holding onto the lamp, in case whatever it was jumped from there, but found nothing but her jeans, t-shirts and some hoodies. She looked everywhere for something that could serve as a more effective weapon, but unless she somehow managed to stab someone with an eyeliner, she would have to stick with the lamp.

She stepped out and was slapped in the face by another shock: the wallpaper on the hallway. It was exactly the same, even though it must have been literally _ages_ since no one had lived in the house, so it should be peeling off and falling apart. Yet, it was there, with its little daisies and its green details, as perfect as the last day she’d seen it. She touched it, but just like everything in the room, it felt solid under her fingers.

The smell of coffee and hotcakes invaded her nostrils the minute she put a foot on the first step of the stairs. She could hear the radio somewhere, announcing the weather for that day was expected to be warm, interrupted only by the sizzling of something frying in a pan and the clatter of plates and mugs, the normal sounds of someone making breakfast.

Every one of her senses was shouting at her that she was home, _actually_ home, but she refused to believe it. It was impossible. It _couldn’t_ be possible.

And yet when she finally reached the bottom of the stairs, her heart skipped a beat.

There was a blonde woman in the kitchen, busying herself with the oven. Claire only saw the back of her head and once again she thought to herself: _“It’s not real. It can’t be.”_

“Mom?” she heard herself calling out.

The blonde woman turned around.

And it was indeed Amelia Novak. Alive, and radiant, and smiling in a way she hadn’t seen her smile in years. She was wearing her Kiss-The-Chef apron her father had given to her as a joke gift and she had a stain of flour in her cheek.

“Hey, sweetie,” she greeted Claire. “Why are you up so early? Did you fall out of bed?”

Claire didn’t know what to answer. She gripped onto the lamp a little tighter, her mouth suddenly gone dry.

“What’s going on?” she asked out loud.

“What do you mean?” her mother asked, frowning. “Are you okay? You look pale.”

“I… I’m…” Claire stuttered, utterly unable to form a proper sentence.

Amelia dusted her hands on the apron and walked towards her. Claire took a step backwards, because she didn’t want to think of her tact, she didn’t want to remember how cold her skin had been, how…

But when Amelia’s palm came to rest on her forehead, it was warm. It was solid. Like the hand of a living person.

“Well, you don’t have a fever,” she commented, before grabbing both Claire’s cheek and making her look at her. “What’s up with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. And why did you bring down your lamp?”

There was nothing Claire would have loved more than to jump towards her and hug her tight, but she feared she would vanish like an actual ghost if she tried. Also, she was making a real effort to not cry.

Before she could decide how to react, the door opened and Claire saw probably the only person who could explain to her what was going on.

“Castiel!” she screamed as she ran towards him.

The man stopped in the middle of the living room. He was wearing jeans and a t-shirt, not the suit and tie combination the angel used to sport, and he was carrying a paper bag. And besides, everything was wrong: the way he stood, his hair, the way he shot her a look when she called him, like he didn’t recognize the name at all. Before he opened his mouth, Claire already knew whose voice was going to come out of it.

“Who’s Castiel?” her father asked, confused. “And why do you have your lamp?”

“Jimmy, she’s acting all weird,” her mother intervened. “Do you think we should call a doctor?”

Claire shut her eyes tight for a moment, because she needed to stop seeing them, she needed to stop hearing their voices for a moment or she would start bawling and howling. She already felt her hands trembling and her knees about to give in, but she needed to stay alert. She needed to figure out what the hell was going all there.

“What do we do every time before we eat?” she asked.

“What?”

“What do we do every time before eating anything?” she repeated, opening her eyes and piercing the man posing as her father with them.

“We say Grace,” he replied. Then he added with a scoff: “Although lately you’ve refused to do so based on your new found atheism,” he rolled his eyes, like he did when he found something ridiculous and slightly annoying. “Claire, seriously, are you okay?”

Claire was completely disarmed.

“I… guess,” she said, hoping her voice wouldn’t break down.

“Great, because I have a surprise for you,” he said, smiling wide all of the sudden. He opened the paper bag and pulled a brown frame from it. He handed it to Claire.

With all that was going on, Claire took a second to process what she was seeing. It was a paper with the Northwestern University letterhead on the top. The first few lines congratulated the receiver. An acceptance letter directed to… Claire Novak.

“I… got accepted?” she asked, really confused. How could that be?

“I know! I still can’t believe it either!” Jimmy said, barely able to contain his excitement. He put an arm around Claire’s shoulder (it was as warm and solid as Amelia’s hand had been) and pulled her closer to give her a kiss on the top of the head. “We’re so proud of you!”

“But how could I’ve been accepted?” Claire asked, as if finding out her abandoned house was still standing and seeing her dead parents walking about was not perplexing enough. “I dropped out.”

“Well, with all the electives you took, I’m sure you were about to a few times,” Amelia laughed, and pointed at the wall behind the couches in the living room. “But you pulled through.”

Claire walked up to that place, and was even more confused. When she lived there, there used to be a painting of abstract paintings on the walls. Now there were photos, mostly of her: of her and her mom standing on a boat somewhere, of her holding a trophy, of her in black robes with a graduation cap over her head. She was smiling for the camera in all of them.

“I’m going to nail this… right here,” Jimmy said, pointing at an empty spot on the wall. “And it’s the first thing I’m going to show to everyone who comes to visit.”

“Okay, but before you start destroying my walls, come here and eat some breakfast,” Amelia demanded. “You too, Claire. Got the feeling you need it.”

Claire was too busy staring at the pictures, then back down at the acceptance letter, then back at her father.

“Claire, what’s the matter?” he asked, frowning. “You know you can tell us. What’s wrong?”

Claire threw the frame over the couch, wrapped her arms around Jimmy and hid her face on his shirt. He smelled like his favorite shaving cream and the soap her mother used to wash the clothes, scents she remembered from her childhood. He was solid, and warm, and _real_.

“Nothing,” she muttered, her voice breaking slightly. “I had a bad dream, that’s all. Everything is okay now.”

“You need to stop watching all those horror movies,” Jimmy sighed, putting a hand on the back of her head to hold her tighter.

Claire didn’t want to let go, but after a while she considered it would be weird if she burst into tears there, so she stepped backwards.

“I’m going to go change now,” she said. “And then I’ll have breakfast, I promise. All of the breakfast.”

“Okay, but don’t take too long,” Amelia warned her. “It’s going to get cold.”

“I’ll be right back down,” Claire promised, as she jumped the stairs and ran to her bedroom again. Because it was her bedroom. Obviously, this Claire had a taste for lame boy bands, but that was a small price to pay.

She had her family back. She had her home back. She had her life back.

It was a miracle.

Claire slid against the door, hid her face in her needs and did what she hadn’t been able to do since Tulsa: she cried her eyes out.

 

* * *

 

It took her several minutes to calm down, but nobody came to bother her. Apparently, in this life, she always took her time to get out of bed and be presentable.

“Really, me?” she huffed as she examined the clothes in the closet. “Skinny jeans and skirts? Do you have anything that’s, I don’t know, practical?”

Finally, she found a pair of jeans that didn’t look that constricting and took them out of the hanger. She turned around to throw them on the bed…

“WAKE UP!” the boy in her mirror screamed.

Claire jumped and put a hand over her mouth to contain her whimper, but when she looked again, the mirror only showed her startled face.

“Okay,” she muttered, and waited a minute until her heart stopped pounding in her chest.

Despite her mother’s warnings, the coffee was still hot when she came back downstairs and the hotcakes looked perfectly spongy, with the syrup glistening under the kitchen’s light.

“It looks delicious, mom,” Claire said, as she sat down.

“Why, thank you,” Amelia replied, leaning on her chair to pinch Claire’s nose playfully. “What’s got into you today?”

“I’m just… happy,” Claire replied with a shrug. Jimmy smiled and picked up his coffee mug. “Wait, are we not going to say grace?” Claire asked.

Jimmy put the mug back down, staring at Claire while he blinked in shock.

“Do you want to say Grace?”

“Well, yeah,” Claire said. “I feel… thankful today.”

Jimmy and Amelia exchanged confused looks, but then they smiled and they both extended their hands towards Claire. She gripped them maybe a little tighter than she needed to, but it didn’t seem to matter today.

“We thank Thy, Lord, for this food we are about to eat,” he said. “We thank Thy for our loving family and the many blessing you have bestowed upon us. Amen.”

Claire stuffed her face like she hadn’t done in a very long while, savoring every bit of hotcake until she felt like she was about to explode, and then she volunteered to wash the dishes.

“You work so hard, mom, let me do this for you,” she argued.

“I really don’t know what is up with you, but I hope it continues,” Amelia said, and left her alone to go work in the garden.

Claire made sure to scratch every last bit of food of them, and then rinsed them very carefully. Jimmy found her still at it half an hour later.

“You’re still here?”

“I live here,” Claire reminded him. “Where else could I be?”

“Beats me,” he shrugged. “Usually you’re out the door so fast the dust doesn’t even have to settle down. Shouldn’t you be hanging out with Krissy and Alexis?”

The dish Claire was drying almost slipped from her fingers. A sudden shudder had travelled down her spine, but she still managed to sound calm when she turned around to face him.

“Who?”

“Krissy and Alexis?” Jimmy repeated. “And Josephine, too. You know, your BFFs… or whatever is it that you kids call it these days.”

He laughed it off, but Claire could tell it looked force. She put down the dish down on the kitchen counter and cleared her throat.

“Well, yeah,” she said. “But, it’s… I’m going to college soon, and I just… I want to spend some time with you, guys. Is that wrong?”

“No, of course it’s not wrong,” Jimmy replied. “We love you very much. You know that, don’t you?”

“I know,” Claire replied, trying to keep her smile. “I love you, too.”

Jimmy leaned over to kiss her in the forehead and Claire looked down at the dishes so he didn’t see the tears streaming down her face.

When she was done, she had nothing else to do, but passing by the window, she saw Amelia kneeling between the plants in the garden. She pushed the glass open.

“Do you need a hand?”

“Sure,” Amelia said, again a little startled. “But go put on some old clothes, will you?”

Claire showed her a thumb up and then went upstairs to do just that…

… except that her room wasn’t empty.

The boy in the mirror was standing right in the middle of it, and the second he saw it he took two strides towards her and grabbed her by the shoulders.

“Thank God!” he said. “Listen, I don’t have much time. My name’s Aiden. I know this is going to sound crazy, but none of this is real. You’ve been captured by a creature called a Djinn and all of this is a hallucination caused by its poison…”

“I know.”

Aiden stopped talking and blinked at her several times.

“You… know?” he asked, somewhere between horrified and confused.

“I know it’s not real,” Claire said. “I don’t care.”


	5. Chapter 5

Aiden stared at her for several seconds, stunned. Claire thought she saw his form became blurry around the edges, but in the end he remained solid in front of her. Well, as solid as he could be, all things considered.

“What do you mean you don’t care?!” he asked in the end. He sounded a little desperate but Claire remained firm.

“I don’t care,” she repeated. “I have my family back, my home. This is what my life should have been.”

Aiden’s outrage seemed to disappear all at once, and he was now looking at Claire with something akin to pity.

“Look, I know how great it feels, okay?” he said. “I keep dreaming about a fishing trip with my dad I didn’t get to go to. He’s got them down to ever single detail, but it’s not really your family, and this is not really your house, and if you stay here, you’re going to die.”

Claire blinked at him.

“Let me guess, you don’t care,” Aiden sighed and then grabbed his head in despair. “Jesus, what is your problem?”

“That’s a long story, and I don’t feel like telling it,” Claire shrugged. “Now I have to go work in the garden with my mom. Get out of my room.”

Amazingly, that worked. Aiden disappeared, leaving her as alone as she had been before. She found a pair of baggy jeans and a hoodie that looked more like the clothes she wore when she was awake. She opened the door… and found Aiden again in the hallway. He looked paler and a little thinner than before, and his breathing had got heavier and harsher.

“What is up with you?” she couldn’t help but to ask.

“I… don’t think I have much time… time left,” he said, gasping. “I’ve woken up… a couple of times. But I couldn’t escape. I’m too weak.”

“Okay, maybe you should sit down,” Claire suggested, pretty certain he was about to pass out in front of her.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, smiling at her. But his lips were so colorless and his face was so tired, it looked more like he was cringing in pain. “I’m not really here, remember?”

He still slid down the wall and hid his head against his knees.

“He doubled the dose,” he explained. “So I can’t… I can’t wake up anymore. But I can talk to you. And the others.”

“The others?” repeated Claire, frowning.

Slowly, like she it was trying to retrieve something long forgotten, a series of images started flashing in the back of her mind.

Three people in the darkened warehouse, hanging by their wrists like animals in the slaughterhouse.

A brunette girl smiling in the first page of the newspaper. “HAVE YOU SEEN ME?”

And the other boy. The quarterback. Claire couldn’t remember his name. It was a pretentious, douchebag name, but she couldn’t remember exactly what it was.

“Are they…?”

“Dreaming,” Aiden nodded. “The Dijnn has fed on all of us, but not you. I think. Not yet. That’s why I thought… but you clearly ain’t interested in helping.”

He staggered to his feet. His knees trembled violently and he had to lean against the wall to avoid falling down. He couldn’t much older than her (nineteen, perhaps twenty years old) but he moved with the pace and the care of a very fragile old man.

“It doesn’t matter,” he murmured. “I’ll save them. I’ll find a way… before we all…”

His voice trailed off.

He was gone again. Claire stood on the hallway, unsure what to do next.

She had made a choice. She thought she could ignore the fact that none of it was real. She thought she could…

“HAVE YOU SEEN ME?”

Eloise smiling at the camera. Her parents and her boyfriend asking for information to find her.

A honk in front of the house cut off her thoughts.

“Claire?” Amelia called, her steps climbing up the stairs. “Claire, come down.”

She appeared at the end of the hallway. For a second, Claire thought she would look sickly and pale, just like Aiden had, but Amelia was as perfect and radiant as she had been before.

Her clothes didn’t have a speck of dirt in them. Now that she thought about it, she didn’t remember the night falling. She could have sworn it was barely morning fifteen minutes ago.

Maybe now that she knew it was dream, everything would start losing consistency.

“Your Grandma’s here,” Amelia announced. “She brought you a surprise.”

“Gran’s alive?” Claire asked, frowning.

“You know she doesn’t like that kind of jokes,” her mother said, rolling her eyes. “Come on down now, she wants to see you.”

“Okay,” Claire said. “Yeah, I’ll be there in a minute. I, uh…”

“Why? Is there a problem?” Amelia asked. “Are you feeling alright?”

“I’m fine,” Claire assured her. “I just need to go to the bathroom for a second. Then I’ll be right down.”

“Alright,” Amelia said. “I’ll wait for you right here.”

Claire could feel the sting of her eyes on her back as she walked inside the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

She didn’t have much time.

“Aiden,” she called in a whisper. Nothing happened. Claire gritted her teeth and called a little louder: “Aiden!”

Aiden’s face materialized in the mirror. He looked a little better than before, but there were still dark circles underneath his eyes. He was wearing a lifesaver jacket and a green hat over his curls. Claire could see lodge walls behind him. He was back at the fishing trip with his father.

“You said you woke up,” she said. “How? How did you wake up?”

“Oh, you want to help _now_?”

“Oh, you _don’t_ want my help now?”

Aiden sighed. He looked too tired to have that conversation.

“You have to die,” he said. “You die in your dreams, you wake up in reality.”

Claire didn’t waste time asking how she was supposed to do that. Her parents, whether they were a memory or a hallucination, would never hurt her that way, not even if she pushed them too.

She’d have to do it herself.

Aiden seemed to be thinking the same thing, because he added:

“Do it fast. They’re going to try and stop you.”

Claire blinked, and found only her reflection looking back at her.

Her hands were trembling, but she still forced one into a fist and raised it. She hoped she could punch the mirror hard enough to shatter it. She would only need a small shard…

“Claire?” Amelia knocked on the door. “Are you okay in there?”

Claire put her fist down, and flushed the toilet.

“Coming out now!” she said.

She couldn’t try it like that. The dream had to follow a certain logic to not destroy the illusion. If her mother heard the mirror breaking, she would rush in and save her.

Claire would have to find another way. And until then, she’d have to pretend that nothing was wrong.

She opened the door and smiled at her mother.

“Sorry,” she said. “Too many pancakes.”

Amelia hummed with suspicion, but in the end she shook her head.

“Come on. Gran’s really anxious to show you her present.”

Claire followed her downstairs, and…

She wasn’t prepared.

She knew her parents were dead, of course, but despite everything, the last memories she had of them (except the lasts of her mother’s) showed them alive and well.

Her grandmother had been another issue. Claire had lived with her for years after Amelia left her, and she’d had a front row seat to her slow decay. Her forgetfulness. Her hands becoming less and less stable. The nights she woke up crying like a child because she had wetted the bed. How she had depended more and more of Claire feeding her. By the time Claire had convinced her to go to the hospital (or better, take her there without Gran resisting) she was nothing but a bundle of skins and bones. She had died holding Claire’s hand and calling her Amelia, because she didn’t remember having a granddaughter.

And now there she was, lively and happy, her cheeks full and her hands firm when she tended them towards Claire.

“There you are, my little flower!” she called her, just like in the old times. “Why are you so shocked? It’s like you’ve seen a ghost!”

“Yeah,” Claire muttered, hiding her face in her grandma’s grey hair to try and get herself together. “Something like that.”

“Isn’t it great when the whole family is together?” Amelia asked. “I’m going to make a great dinner for us all to enjoy!”

The words sounded excessively happy, excessively forced. But at least they served to remind Claire that she needed to stay awoke. Everything around her was fake. No matter how real and solid it felt.

“Can I see the present?” she asked, forcing out a smile.

Her grandmother (her grandmother’s shadow) reacted a little too slow, like Claire had said something out of script and she needed a second to readjust.

“Oh, sweetie, I’m sure we should have your mother’s wonderful dinner first.”

“Please?” Claire insisted. “I really want to see it.”

Gran exchanged a look with Jimmy and Amelia, almost as if asking permission. Claire was ready to corner her by insisting a little bit more, but that wasn’t necessary.

“Yes,” she said, taking a little box from her pocket. “Yes, of course. I hope you enjoy it very much.”

Claire undid the bow of the little box, and opened it. She almost was expecting to see the little keys inside, but she still was slightly surprised to be right. The dream, to a certain extent, responded to her wishes. She needed to use that wisely.

“Thank you!” she exclaimed, hugging her grandmother again. “Gran, you really didn’t have to!”

“Anything for my little flower, of course,” Gran replied.

“Can I take it for a drive? Right now?”

The smiles on her family’s faces wavered a little bit.

“Claire, it’s getting late,” Jimmy argued.

“And dinner will be ready soon,” Amelia added. “Maybe you could wait until afterwards?”

It would have so easy to say yes. It would have been so easy to give in, to have one last dinner with them, to eat her mother’s food, and hear her grandma’s laughter, and listen to his father saying grace one last time.

But she knew that if she did, it would be all that much harder to leave afterwards. If she let that happiness invade her again, if she let herself forget, it would be impossible for her to what she had to do.

“I’ll just go around the block,” Claire said, striding towards the door before they could stop her. “I’ll be back before you even notice, I promise.”

She slammed the door behind her and jumped down the porch’s steps. She didn’t even bother to tear out the bow of the brand new Mercedes parked right outside. She climbed on the driver’s seat and turned on the engine.

The passenger’s door opened and closed almost too quickly for her to notice.

“Dad?” she asked. “What are you doing?”

“I just… thought I tagged along,” Jimmy said. “I worry about you. I love you, Claire. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Claire sighed, looking ahead because if she looked at him she would start hesitating again. “Yes, I know that.”

She stepped on the pedal and the car practically flew down the street.

“Claire!” he shouted. “Claire, slow down right now!”

“I can’t do that,” she replied. “I’m sorry.”

She heard a click, and guessed that Jimmy had just adjusted his seat belt. She reminded herself that it didn’t make any difference, that he was already dead, and accelerated even more, crossing a red light without even blinking, out of the calm suburbs that had once been her home.

“Claire, please,” Jimmy begged. “I don’t know what’s got into you…”

“Shut up!” Claire snapped. “Shut up, you’re not really my father!”

A car stopped brusquely and honked at them on an intersection. They left Main Street at breakneck speed, and Claire kept an eye on the dashboard. They were going at a hundred miles, a hundred and ten, a hundred and twenty…

“Claire,” Jimmy said again, a note of panic in his voice. “Claire, we need to talk about this. Stop the car, please.”

“You’re not real!” Claire replied, like saying out loud would make it easier. “You’re a dream, and if I stay with you, I’m going to die.”

A hundred and thirty, a hundred and forty, a hundred and fifty…

“Okay!” Jimmy shouted. “Okay, maybe that’s right. But would it be so bad? To have your life again, to stay with us?”

“It’s not real,” Claire repeated, a little lower. A hundred and sixty, a hundred and seventy…

“Twenty minutes ago, you didn’t care about that!” he exclaimed, frustrated. He seemed to realize it had been a mistake, because he changed his tone again to the begging one: “Okay, let’s say you’re right. Let’s say you’ll die. We all have to die sometime. And if you do, then you’d be really with us. Will that really be so bad? Don’t you want that?”

The lights of the road were getting blurry, or maybe it was that Claire couldn’t see them through the tears.

“Yes,” she admitted on a broken voice. She turned around to look at her father once more: his big blue eyes that were just like hers, his wool vest, his saddened expression. “Yes, more than anything,” she continued. “But it isn’t what you would want for me.”

She turned the wheel as brusquely as she could, and then let go.

The airbag went off, she realized as she flew through the window in a halo of broken glass cutting her skin. It went off just a second too late to save her, so maybe the dream did respond to her wishes. It was weird that she would notice that when she was about to die.

She hit her head against the lamppost and for a fraction of a second, she wondered if she had made a terrible mistake. Maybe this was her real life. Maybe her other life had been the dream, a horrible, horrible dream.

The pain felt real. It shot down her spine so fast and so intense she felt like she was being split in two and she would have screamed if her mouth hadn’t been filled with her own blood. She couldn’t move, and she was vaguely aware that her head was turned in an angle that wasn’t right, that _couldn’t_ be right.

“Claire!” she heard a faraway voice calling her: “Claire!”

It didn’t sound at all like her father’s.


	6. Chapter 6

Claire opened her eyes with a gasp.

The darkness around her was impenetrable, but she could feel her heart pounding in her chest, the cold air filling up her lungs. The pain still clung to her, but it wasn’t as severe as she thought.

“Claire!” someone was shouting. “Claire, where are you?”

She wanted to shout back, but her throat was dry. She couldn’t feel her hands, and slowly, she realized it was because they had been tied above her head for too long. She moved them a little, ignoring all the needles torturing her flesh. She needed to get them free, immediately.

She hesitated only a second. After all, breaking her own wrist after having broken her neck on propose didn’t seem all that terrible. She twisted them around the leather leashes, at the same time she moved her tongue and tried to recover her voice.

“I’m here!” her voice came out like a hoarse mumble. She cleared her throat and tried to produce some saliva. “I’m here!”

The tip of her toes were barely grazing the floor, so she pulled them up (it hurt like hell, because her legs had too gone numb), and pulled down again with all her strength. She almost managed to plant her soles on the ground. The pipe she was tied to bounced over her head, and she immediately changed her plans. She pulled again. Her eyes were getting used to the dark, so she could see the silhouette of the other victims hanging by her sides. They were a dead weight, and Claire made the most of it.

The rusty pipe clattered and racketed, but each time she pulled, her feet where closer to the ground. She was aware she was making a scandal and it could lure the Djinn back, but she didn’t care. Maybe the people who were looking for her, who were calling her name, would hear it too.

With one last pull, she finally got her feet on the ground, but she didn’t have time to be happy about it: she fell heavily on her face, still tied to the pipe. A dull ache extended through her shoulder, and her chest. It was amazing that the blow hadn’t woken up any of the others, and she hoped to hell it wasn’t too late.

“Claire!” the voice came again. This time she recognized it: it was Alexis’.

The warehouse’s door creaked open and she heard steps hurrying towards her. A flash of light passed right over her face, and Claire had to blink several times to get used to it.

“You okay?” another person exclaimed.

“Jodie?” she muttered, as the sheriff and Alexis quickly undid her ties. “What are you…?”

“Long story, sweetie,” Jody replied, rubbing Claire’s wrists quickly. “Don’t worry. Help’s on the way.”

Claire looked at a side. Josephine and Krissy were untying another person: the boy with curly hair that had been in her dream. Aiden. His eyes were closed and his breathing was slow and shallow. He had said he didn’t have much time left, but…

“We need to get out of here,” Claire said. “The Dijnn, it could be…”

A screamed interrupted her. Before she even realized what was going on, Alexis was dragged away by the hair. Underneath the other hunters flashlight, Claire finally could take a good look at him.

He was like a bold man, but taller and definitely bulkier. His blue eyes glimmered cruelly under the light, and there were blue patterns tracing all over his face and down his chest. He was holding Alexis close to his chest, with an enormous, menacing hand hovering over her.

Claire had no doubt in her mind what he was about to do. Jody didn’t either, because she lunged herself at the Djinn with a ridiculous small knife in her hand while shouting: “Let her go!”

Krissy and Josephine raising her guns, standing protectively around Aiden’s unconscious body, but there was no way they could take a shot without hurting Alexis.

Something glimmered in the corner of Claire’s eye. Her sword. She grabbed it without a second thought.

Jody managed to get close to the monster, but he repelled her with a flicker of his wrist. Jody flew across the warehouse and landed heavily on the concrete floor. Alexis cried out her name.

Claire ran towards the Dijnn.

He didn’t move fast enough to repel Claire like he had done with Jody. When he moved his hand towards Claire, the edge of her sword was waiting for it.

The creature howled in pain and let go of Alexis to clutch his arm. Claire swung the sword once more, expecting some sort of resistance, but it cut through his flesh and his bones with an ease she wasn’t expecting. The impulse made her spin around, and when she looked again, the Dijnn’s headless body was lying on the floor, with a pool of black blood extending underneath it.

It was over.

The three victims stirred in their slumber, like they’d felt the change.

Alexis staggered to her feet and ran towards Jody, who was sitting up with a groan.

Josephine put her gun down.

“I gotta get me one of those,” she told Krissy.

 

* * *

 

The memories of what happened next were kind of blurry. There were a lot of lights and sirens breaking the night’s calmness, and of course, Jody screaming and lying left and right. Something about Claire and Alexis being invited to a secret rave and stumbling upon Krissy and Josephine, who had receive a message from their kidnapped friend, and then all of them “stumbling” upon the victims and the decapitated guy. Nobody seemed to question it much. Claire had the impression people form Jody’s department was used to half-baked explanations, and they accepted them because she kept the town safe.

In any case, Jody was allowed to bring them home, whereupon Claire practically passed out on the couch for the next twelve hours.

If she dreamed, she didn’t remember it.

There was a note from Jody on the fridge saying that she was going to the station to “tie loose ends”. There were also some room numbers from the local hospital. Claire didn’t have to ask who were in them. Also, why Jody had left the keys of her truck over the kitchen’s table.

It was too late for Claire to go to work.

Not that she was going back to work. Not that she could go back to her numbingly boring routine after everything that’d happened.

In any case, she too needed to tie up some loose ends before she left.

The hospital was surrounded by journalists and police officers when she arrived. Apparently, Eloise Parker’s and Trey Teeter’s (so _that_ was his name) parents were scheduled to give a press conference about their children’s reappearance. Claire pulled the hoodie over her head so the cameras didn’t get her face by mistake and strolled past the busy police officers and the front desk nurse, who was too busy flirting with a photographer to pay her any attention.

Aiden’s room was on the second floor, separated from Eloise’s and Trey’s. He didn’t seem to be as interesting for the press as the pretty girl and the college’s quarterback. Claire supposed that was alright. They couldn’t have them paying too much attention to him anyway.

From across the glass doors, he looked pretty out of shape: his body was pale and thin, connected to tubes and machines that marked the regular beating of his heart. Krissy and Josephine were sitting by his side, each with a plastic cup of (Claire presumed) coffee in their hands.

At first, Claire thought about just walking in and talking to them, but when Krissy raised her face and scowled at her, she decided against her. Maybe coming there was a bad idea after all. She was about to turn around and flee when Josephine opened the door.

“Hey, Blondie,” she greeted her.

“Hi,” Claire said, suddenly wishing her hoodie was larger and she was a lot smaller. “I just… wanted to check how he was doing.”

“He’s going to be alright,” Josephine informed her. “The Dijnn took a lot out of him and it’s going to be a while before we can take him home. But he’s gonna be fine. And as soon as he is, I’m not gonna let him hear the end of it.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Claire said, sincerely. “He helped me, you know. When we were in there. Can you thank him for me?”

“Of course.”

Claire stood there awkwardly, not sure how to continue the conversation. Luckily, Josephine did:

“You did good,” she said. “No, really. You impressed me.”

“Thank you,” Claire looked down at her shoes, hoping she didn’t seem as embarrassed by the compliment as she felt. “Uh… Krissy doesn’t look all that impressed.”

In fact, Krissy was giving her a stink eye from where she was sitting, almost as she was willing Claire to go away forever.

“Yeah, well…” Josephine shrugged. “She thinks you’re reckless and unpredictable, and we should want nothing to do with you.”

“Well, she’s not wrong.”

“Hey, don’t sell yourself short,” Josephine said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “You did great for a rookie.”

Claire looked at her for a couple of seconds, wondering if what she was about to ask was too personal and if Josephine would just prefer to keep quiet. She wouldn’t be offended, but she was such an awkward, clumsy idiot she forgot to say it before asking the question:

“Do you miss it?”

Josephine frowned, clearly confused.

“Hunting,” Claire clarified. “Krissy said you only hunt when something stumbles into your town. Do you miss going out there and…?”

“I… never really thought about it,” Josephine frowned. “I liked learning about all these stuff, but I’m just a nerd, so.”

She shrugged and gave Claire and apologetic smile. She had clearly understood that was not what she wanted to ask, but couldn’t give her the answer she was looking for.

“Right,” Claire said, nodding. “Well, I guess I should go…”

“Claire, wait,” Josephine called her before she could turn around. It was the fact she used her name and not “Blondie” what made her stop in her tracks. “Give me your cellphone.”

Josephine punched some numbers.

“If you can’t figure how to take out something, call me and I’ll hit the books for you,” she said, handing it back to Claire. “Whatever you need, whenever you need it. Just call me.”

“Why?” Claire asked, confused.

“’Cause it’ll help you stay alive?” Josephine replied.

“Yeah, but why do you care if I’m alive?” Claire said. It wasn’t until the words had already left her mouth that she realized exactly how depressing they’ve sounded.

If Josephine realized, she gave no signs of it.

“We have to take care of each other,” she shrugged. “Krissy sometimes forgets it’s not just the three of us out there.”

And like that was explanation enough, she turned around and head back to Aiden’s room.

Claire stood on the hallway for a very long time. It was like Josephine knew exactly what she was planning to do next. It was like she could see Claire had already made her choice.

She had already finished packing when Jody came home.

“Hey,” she greeted her, and then, upon noticing the bag at Claire’s feet and how the few belongings she had scattered around the house had been neatly put away, she stopped. “What are you doing?”

“You said I was welcome until I got back on my feet,” Claire pointed out. “I’m back on my feet now. It’s time to start walking.”

Jody’s face got immediately serious, as it had been the night she told them not to go snooping around.

“Have you thought this through, kid?”

“No,” Claire admitted. She still picked up her bag and hanged it from her shoulder. “But it’s just something I have to do.”

“And I guess there’s nothing I can say to stop you, right?”

She sounded almost frustrated about it.

“Thank you for everything, Jody,” Claire replied. She picked up something she left on the couch and handed it to her: the Grumpy Cat plushie Castiel had given to her. She got the feeling it'll be safer if it stayed there. “Can you give this to Alexis for me?”

“She’s going to be mad you didn’t stick to say goodbye,” Jody pointed out.

“I know,” Claire nodded. “Please, don’t be too hard on her. She didn’t really want to come. I talked her into it.”

“Of course you did,” Jody said, rolling her eyes slightly as if to indicate she didn’t believe a word Claire said. “You sure you don’t want to at least stay for dinner? We’re having lamb.”

Claire shook her head. It’d be too tempting. Too easy to fall back in that routine and let it carry her away until the next wake up call. And who knew when that would be.

“Goodbye, Jody,” she said, and walked out the door hoping it didn’t seem like she was running away.

She had reached the street when Jody called her from the other.

“Call us now and then, will you? So we know how you’re doing.”

She didn’t say “So we know you’re alive”, but she really didn’t have to.

“I will,” Claire promised. She wasn’t sure if she was going to keep it, but she made the promise anyway.

Jody stayed at the door as she walked away. Claire could feel the sting of her eyes in the back of the head. As she crossed the street, heading for the bus stop, she wondered why there were so many people hell-bent on making sure she didn’t die.

Maybe, she thought as she boarded the bus, they were all just reminding her what her father had given up for her. What sacrifices he had made to make sure she had a life to live.

Well, she was going to. And she was going to make the most out of it. She was going to help others with it.

She leaned her forehead against the window’s glass and looked up at the sky. The sun was falling in the horizon, thin shreds of clouds surrounding it.

And for the first time in a very long while, Clair found herself smiling. Just because.


End file.
